Losing to the Clippers, Montrezl Harrell destroying the paint, lost 2 games Rested Chris Paul against the Cavaliers, lost that game, Collin Sexton destroyed the Rockets Guards James Harden goes for 50 at Washington, lost at Washington James Harden had 50 points at home vs Brooklyn, couldn't keep the lead, Spencer Dinwiddie looked like Stephen Curry knocking down 3s and winning at Overtime. Danuel House not resigning, Rockets looked lost for awhile, lost some games. A lot of games lost, Jeff Bzdelik not keeping him, Rockets with the worst defense in the league, until Jeff came back. Carmelo poor defense in the beginning of the year, along with Michael Carter Williams.
It looked extremely consequential after the way this series went down. Here's what we absolutely know. If the Rockets had won that game, they would've been the #2 seed. It also would've made OKC the #8 seed. Here's what we can assume. Had everything else played out the way it did on the last day of the regular season, Denver is #3, Portland is #4, San Antonio is #6, and LA is #7. So imagine the Rockets getting the Clippers in Round 1, Denver in Round 2, and having home court against both. There's no way we're not in the Conference Finals. And imagine in the other bracket, Golden State having to deal with the very physical Thunder and then either the backcourt of Lillard and McCollum or another very physical team in the Jazz. Not an easy path to the WCF. This is where I really started to get depressed though. Imagine had Golden State reached the Conference Finals.......and had incurred injuries to Boogie and Durant just like they did against the Clippers and the Rockets. We could've started our series with them being extremely shorthanded instead of just in the final quarter of Game 5 and all of Game 6. Ok, there's no way to know if the latter would've happened. But the Warriors at minimum would've been beaten up and worn down instead of just annoyed by a pesky, upstart Clippers squad.
Voted "extremely" for three reasons... 1) Advancing further is always better. Basketball-Reference notes it, plus there's more exposure for the city. 2) James' missing that last-second 3PA was another strike against his clutch-ability. He hasn't hit many of those shots, playoffs or regular season. 3) Two Seed would've helped Harden's MVP case
Tilman needs that playoff revenue. Also more playoff home games means more opportunities for him to sit next to celebrities and pretend to be cool.
They should have the game because they were up and it was a chance for a higher seed. The same Lacadastical attitude in the OKC game, came back in game5 and 6. Honestly, this team wasn't beating OKC in the first round. I have come to peace with this year's team. Last year's team was that team to win it all. We missed our window.
Helped us a ton, having cousins and KD out is well above expectation injury wise. Maybe it would have worked out just as well, but maybe (probably) not since the first 2 rounds would’ve been such cakewalks for gs
It meant a fall in the seeding and loss of home court. But in terms of us beating the GSW it meant nothing.
I don't understand anyone who would vote consequential?? It was consequential in the sense that we lost in the 2nd round instead of the 3rd, I guess. But as is, they got through the whole series with no meaningful injuries. They got Steph and Klay slightly banged up coming in, they got Steph with a dislocated finger, and they got KD getting injured in Game 5. They can't beat GSW. They couldn't as the 2nd seed, as the 8th seed, as the 1st seed or the 4th seed.
In the end i think it helped us, gave us the chance to battle the Warriors healty and we had the chance to play them without Durant almost two games. We could've had an "easy" conference finals too...
Mildly consequential. would it have been nice to make it to the WCF for the 2nd year in a row? Yeah I guess, but we would have lost to GS anyway.
On that second point, my bigger concern is not that he missed the last second three. He usually does brick those. It's that he missed one of his free throws right before George hit his 3-pointer. We were up only 2 and could no longer foul intentionally. And yes, I know Harden had made like all 11 or 12 free throws prior to that miss, but he seems to struggle at the line when they really matter. Like going 1 of 2 late in Game 4 against the Warriors. Or missing 5 free throws in a must win Game 6.
